1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus which records a visual image on, or erases it from, a recording material which permits information to be formed thereon or erased therefrom by heat.
2. Description of the Related Art
In conventional hard copy recording, a developer, such as ink or toner, is externally applied to a recording medium like paper to form a visible image on the medium, or a visible image is formed on a thermal recording layer formed on a base material (e.g., paper) as in the case of thermal recording paper, providing a permanent image. As various network systems are built and facsimile and copying machines become popular, however, consumption of the recording medium and recording material such as thermal recording paper is significantly increased, causing environmental destruction, such as excessive deforestation, and social problems on waste disposal or the like. It is strongly demanded that the consumption of the recording materials should be reduced by means of recycling recording paper, etc. in order to cope with those problems.
To meet the demand, attention has been paid to recording materials which permit repetitive forming and erasing of a visible image thereon and therefrom. One recording material with that property has been proposed, whose transparent state and light-extinct or opaque state can reversibly be altered from one to the other by applied heat to form and erase a visible image (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,695,528).
No established recording apparatus has appeared which can repetitively record information (form a visible image) on or erase it from the above-described recording material whose transparent and opaque states are reversibly changed from one to the other according to applied heat. There is a great demand for a recording apparatus which can easily control temperature for information recording and erasing and can ensure stable information recording and erasing.